There are no time limits in the game, so relax and take as much time as you need.

Don’t forget to right-click to identify empty spaces – this will be an important visual aid to solving puzzles.

If all numbers in a row have turned from white to gray and have been crossed out, that means you’ve found all the tiles in thaguet row. You should immediately fill in all the remaining squares with dirt.

Hold down the mouse button and drag the cursor along a row of tiles to highlight them all – this lets you brush or dig multiple tiles at the same time, and is faster than clicking each tile individually.

If you have a row with all tiles brushed off and just want to dig in the remaining holes, you can click and drag across the entire row (even over top of exposed tiles).

You can travel to locations you previously visited on the world map to replay any puzzle.

If you make too many mistakes, the mosaic will shatter and you’ll have to start again. If you memorize some of the tiles you had found, you’ll be able to uncover them straight away when you try the board over again.

Many of the mosaic patterns are symmetrical in some way, meaning you should keep an eye out for patterns that will help you fill in tiles. For example, if the mosaic you’re working on is looking like it’s square-shaped and you’ve already filled in two of the four sides, there’s a good chance that you can click where the other two sides should be to uncover tiles.

Hints

When the hint meter, represented by a vial of sand, is charged, it will produce a hint coin. Click on the coin to uncover a couple of squares.

You can accumulate up to four hint coins before the vial will no longer fill with sand. At this point, you might as well use at least one hint so that the vial can start filling again.

Hints do not carry over to the next puzzle, so use them up!

STRATEGY TIPS

Start with high numbers and work your way down. For example, if one of the rows is a 10 and it’s a 10×10 grid, then you can automatically fill in that entire row.

If there are no high numbers, look for rows/columns that have lots of small numbers that equal the total sum of the row. In a column labelled 5 1 2 in a 10×10 grid, for example, the only possible pattern is XXXXXOXOXX (where X is a tile and O is a dug space).

If a numbers set is nothing but a series of ones (1 1 1 1 1), then make sure to dig holes on either side of any tiles in that row because you know there can’t possibly be tiles on either side.

Try to uncover the outside edges as soon as possible, because that will allow you to work inwards using the first and last numbers in each row as a guide to fill in the groups around the edges.

If you feel like you’re stuck, pick a row with few, low numbers, and use the right mouse button to dig along the row. Choosing a row with few numbers, preferably 1’s, means there’s less of a chance you’ll hit a tile, and when you do, you’ll only register one or two mistakes.

Even if you don’t know where all the tiles are in a row, you can fill in parts of the sequence that you know. For example, if you need to find a group of 3 tiles in a row with 5 squares, you will automatically know to fill in the middle square because there are only three possible places for the group of 3 to be, and the middle square is part of all of them:

Possibility 1: XOOOX

Possibility 2: OOOXX

Possibility 3: XXOOO

Sample strategy

Here’s an example of how to tackle a moderately difficult level in World Mosaics using the strategies discussed above. The example uses a 15×15 grid.

Step 1:

Since the grid is 15×15, start by dusting off all the tiles in the rows and columns marked 15 around the edges of the grid.

Step 2:

Look at the numbers on the left-hand side. Because the tiles on the far edge of the board have been filled in, we can now fill in the last row of numbers in each row. Remember to cap them off by digging a square of dirt after each series of tiles.

Step 3:

Follow the same procedure as Step 2, but fill in the tiles along the bottom of the screen using the last set of numbers along the top as your guide.

Step 4:

Now, look at the first set of numbers along the left and top, and fill in the left and top parts of the grid, respectively.

By now you’ve accumulated 3 hint coins, so now would be a good time to use them. Keep filling in tiles, and remember to dig holes in any empty spaces – it’s a great visual aid. Use process of elimination to figure out the locations of the rest of the tiles.